http://thoughtlateral.com Looking at the world laterally, but that's beside the point ;-) Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:00:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://thoughtlateral.com/2009/12/30/get-up-on-the-sound-of-the-alarm/ http://thoughtlateral.com/2009/12/30/get-up-on-the-sound-of-the-alarm/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:32:10 +0000 Denver http://thoughtlateral.com/2009/12/30/get-up-on-the-sound-of-the-alarm/ What is the difference between the alarm going off in the morning and getting out of bed? For me it is the snooze time in between.
When the alarm goes off I’m still semi-concious and hit the snooze button for extra repose. So the time set on the alarm to get up is not the actual time I arise.
How do I get up at the set time? I could set the alarm earlier, so that after snoozing I’d be up at the time planned. However this is interpreted by a freshly awoken brain as “useful time when I should actually still be asleep”, and consequently it feels it is owed extra slumber than the snooze button will give.
The optimal solution is to arise on the sound of the alarm, yet my freshly woken mind is convinced that the one hour for morning tasks (allocated before I went to bed) can be accomplished in just half, which leaves the other half hour for snooze time.
Coersion, threats, etc, have limited impact upon the awoken mind. The most significant impact I’ve found is to bed down earlier the night before, which significantly increases my chances of getting up on the alarm. So changing me over time from a night owl to an early bird.

Hmm, I think I'll share this via:

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